Eric Grauffel

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CCI's® shooting expert, Eric Grauffel, is known for having an unprecedented winning streak. The 29-year-old native of France has won 177 President Medals and is World Champion of the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC).

For his competitive shooting, Grauffel uses only CCI small pistol primers in his hand-loaded ammunition. With CCI primers Grauffel says he gets the most reliability, efficiency and accuracy out of his bullets. "If a primer is not perfect, it is like killing yourself in competition," said Grauffel.

Since 1995 Grauffel estimates he shot 2 million rounds without a misfire while using CCI primers.

During his run of an estimated 120-125 straight victories against the top shooters in the world, Grauffel has amassed eight French National Championships, one U.S. Championship, two European championship titles and two World Championship Titles.

Born and raised in Quimper, France (on the west coast), Grauffel still resides there when he is not traveling the world competing. He began shooting with an air gun at the age of eight. At age 10 he shot his first pistol and within a year Grauffel was competing. He won his first French National Championship at age 15.

Grauffel dedicates as many as six hours a day six days a week in preparation for his sport. Each day he goes through a regiment of shooting and physical training. "This sport is basically technique, to be as skilled as possible you need to be like a thinking-robot," said Grauffel.

In practical shooting, competitors are required to take shots from all different positions, locations and angles. Shots often come on the move or at moving targets. Because all shooters are highly skilled, any edge one of the top competitors can get through physical training is very important.

In addition to several practice sessions, Grauffel also spends several hours reloading each day. Grauffel says reloading his own ammo is much more cost-efficient and many competitors do this because it allows them to personally control everything about their ammunition.

Grauffel shoots a large portion of each "batch" of ammunition before using it. He says that when he receives 5,000 primers, he will shoot 2,000 of them, and as long as none of those misfire he keeps the other 3,000 for competition. When he does this, he is also using it as a way to check that his gun, the powder, the bullet and the shell are all performing up to par.